“He breathed on them”.

What an image! So simple, and yet so powerful. There is nothing dramatic in what Jesus did with that small group of apostles, gathered together with Mary, on that particular Pentecost day. Breathing is something we constantly do in our life, very often without even thinking about it. And yet, it is life. We all have stamped in our minds, unfortunately, the man crying “I can’t breathe” just minutes before he died, with his neck held under someone else’s knee. Somehow I suspect that he knew that, if that knee does not move, death would be imminent. As, indeed, it was. I remember as a child in summer we would go to the beach and hold competitions as to who would stay longer under the water surface. One could hold on as long as possible, but eventually we would pop up for some air.

The disciples of Jesus had been locked up in that room, full of fear - a fear which paralyzed them. Because of that fear, they could not live. They were as good as dead. When Jesus comes to visit, he gives them two gifts, perhaps the two things that they really needed at that particular moment in their lives. First he gifted them with his peace. They were troubled, their hearts were turmoiled, and fear had engulfed them. Jesus’ presence did not change anything that was happening out there. Those who were against them would still be against them, and those who were determined to get rid of this new sect of followers of Jesus of Nazareth, would still be doing their utmost to do it. In spite of all this, Jesus’ presence brings peace. A peace which empowers them to face all those problems without being crushed by them. As St Paul would say in one of his letters, reflecting on his own personal experiences, “we are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed”.

And then Jesus gives life to that life-less body, by breathing on them. “Receive the Holy Spirit,” he tells them. His gift is his own Spirit. And God’s Spirit is not a spirit that crushes, enslaves or suffocates. It is a life-giving spirit. It enabled those disciples to go out of that room and do what they were supposed to do. All this brings to mind another story in the Bible, which was at the beginning of everything. Reading one of the creation stories in the first book of the Bible, the Book of Genesis, we see God forming an image of man made out of clay. It was just a life-less statue. Then the creator “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” This is what happened again on that day of Pentecost. It was a new creation, a new beginning.

How often in our lives do we find ourselves like those disciples! Perhaps paralyzed by our own fears, or enslaved by our own mistakes or those of others. Like those disciples in the upper room, we feel lost, confused, not knowing what to do or, if we knew it, not having enough strength to do it. Today’s liturgy reminds us that we have been given something which is supposed to help us in moments like this. The Holy Spirit which we all received in our baptism is the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise that he would never leave us alone. The Spirit of God gives us peace in troubled moments, It gives us wisdom to understand what we should do in difficult situations. It gives us courage and strength when we know that, on our own, we fall short of expectations.

​This is God’s gift to us. Let us never forget what we have been given, and make good use of it in our lives. 

There is a story that says that once, Leonardo da Vinci had started to work on a large canvas in his studio. For a while he worked at it – choosing the subject, planning the perspective, sketching the outline, applying the colors, with his own inimitable genius. Then, suddenly he stopped working on it. Calling one of his talented students, the master invited him to complete the work. The horrified student protested that he was both unworthy and unable to complete the great painting which his master had begun. But da Vinci silenced him. "Will not what I have done inspire you to do your best?"

This story always come to my mind as I reflect on today’s liturgy. Jesus goes up to Heaven, where he had come from. In a way, his mission is accomplished. He has done what he had come to do. And yet, simultaneously, the mission of Jesus goes on. It is still a work in progress. The only difference is that it is, now, up to us to continue what he had started. In a way, the end becomes, really, a new beginning.

Like Leonardo’s student, a number of questions and doubts may come to mind. Am I worthy? Probably not. Have I got what it takes? On my own, definitely not! But unlike the above-mentioned case, what makes it possible in my case is not simply the inspiration coming from what the master has already done. It is, rather, the knowledge that my master is there: leafing me, guiding me, actually working through me. The work still remains His, and I become a mere instrument.

The disciples, too, had their doubts. And they were definitely not up to scratch as far as discipleship goes. In the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, St Luke says that they still thought of Jesus as some worldly Messiah. In the gospel, then, St Matthew feels the need to use the term “the eleven” for the apostles. It’s a broken, incomplete, damaged group! Moreover, some of those who were there still doubted while worshiping. And yet, Jesus is not scandalized by all this. He does not expect them to become, first, perfect so that they could continue their mission. They don’t need to, because the mission is his not theirs.

There are three elements in the mission Jesus gives to the disciples and, therefore, to each one of us. First to go and make disciples. By our lives we are to encourage others to ask questions, to see Jesus’ lifestyle in our lives, to want to share in what we have been given. Then we are to “baptize” them in the name of God. Baptism here means immersion, to dunk them, saturate them, in the life of Jesus. The celebration of the sacrament will be a visible expression of this, not the other way round. Finally, Jesus tells us to remember (because he knows that we easily tend to forget!) that he will be always with us.

​This divine presence in us will be celebrated next Sunday, the celebration of the Holy Spirit in our lives. In the meantime we do what the eleven did: worship him, enjoy his presence, and listen to what he has to say.

Love. This is what Christianity is all about. Too often I hear people speak of religion in terms of laws, commandments, do’s and don’ts, obligations and fear of judgement, or simply performing or attending rites and rituals.

Throughout his life Jesus gave us a very clear message. When asked about the greatest commandment, he quickly responded that it is loving God and loving your neighbor. If we look at his life, we see that everything he did was just an expression of this love. St John tells us that that was the reason why he came to the world in the first place: “God so loved the world, that he gave us his only Son”. Then he lived his life by helping us to understand what this love really is. He taught those who needed his teaching. He approached people who needed his presence most. Rather than excluding sinners or bad people, he went up to them and opened for them an opportunity for a better life. He never denied forgiveness to those who needed it, irrespective of whether they deserved it or not. He gave his time, his energy, his full self. This he did until the very end when, in an atmosphere of immense love during the last supper, as St John tells us, he gave us his body and blood. This he repeated on the following day, Friday, from the cross.

All this is very important because, just before he died, he gave us what he called “a new commandment”. His parting words to his friends were, “love one another as I have loved you”. This is what we remember every time we celebrate Eucharist. The words “do this in memory of me” are an invitation for us to do the same thing that he did, to live the same kind of life that he lived. The same message is given to us after he washed the disciples’ feet: to serve each other, even if the “other” is Judas the traitor or Peter the one who would deny him.

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments” he tells us in today’s gospel. What Jesus is saying here is not burdening us with another duty. Rather, it is a reminder that, if we love him, then keeping his commandments, namely loving our God and our neighbor, will become our way of life. The disciple is the one who walks on his master’s footsteps. And the Christian is the one who lives the life Jesus lived. Of course, we are well aware that none of us is Jesus Christ! We all have our weaknesses. Every so often we all do what we know is not right. We all know that we find it difficult to forgive those who harm us; we cannot love fully as Jesus did. The good news is that he knows this too! That’s why he promised to be with us always, to never abandon us, to not leave us “orphans”. He knows we need his help to be able to live as good Christians. And today he promises to give us his own Spirit to be with us, to guide us, to give us strength, to constantly be on our side.

​As we continue on our Easter journey, we start preparing ourselves for the feast of Pentecost, the celebration of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Perhaps it would be a good idea if, during this week, we find some quiet time to look a bit at our lives and see how we are living our lives as followers of Christ. Am I loving everybody as Jesus loves them? Have I truly forgiven those who wronged me in any way? Most probably I am going to find that I am not 100% there yet. I need help. And help is just a prayer away. The Easter message tells us that He is stronger than any of our weaknesses. It is a message that gives us what we need to keep going on our journey

“Do not let your hearts be troubled.”

It’s not hard to imagine the disciples’ state of mind as Jesus was preparing them for his death and resurrection. The bit about the resurrection was too much for them to comprehend at that stage. What stayed with them was the fact that he was going to suffer great injustices and eventually be killed. This was the person in whom they had had so many hopes. They had seen him perform miracles. They had listened to so many beautiful and life-giving teachings from him. They had heard him talk about giving new life, making things new, giving joy which would never be taken away. They had seen him feed the hungry with a few loaves and some fish, heal sick people, and even raise people from the dead. Speaking about such an untimely death did not make sense for them. It did not fit with their plans and their hopes. Moreover, during the past three years of being together a strong bond had been formed which cannot be underestimated. With his death all their hopes would be shattered. They would be thrown into a deep crisis. Jesus could foresee all this, and we know he was right. We’ve seen Peter completely loosing the plot, literally denying he had ever known this Jesus of Nazareth. We see the apostles running away and locking themselves up filled with fear. We’ve seen another two disciples running away from it all and, utterly dejected heading towards Emmaus. “We had hoped,” they told the stranger who came to meet them on the way. Now all is gone.

I suspect that the disciples could not really understand what Jesus was telling them. He spoke about his Father’s house and going to prepare a place for them, while hinting at his intimacy with his Father. Both Thomas and Philip, in fact, ask Jesus to specify and be more concrete. Jesus knew that this was too much for them, but he had to say it because, like so many other things in this relationship, it would become handy for the disciples later on. After the resurrection and the reception of the Holy Spirit, these words would be part of the core message of the apostles’ preaching. Jesus’ message was not just for those twelve people gathered with him in that room. It was meant to become timeless and for everybody. It is, therefore, even meant for us today.

Given the circumstances we are living in, if there is a message that we really need to hear is precisely this: do not let your heart be troubled. During these past few weeks of coronavirus I’ve seen people troubled in many different ways. People anxious abut the future. Others anxious about their health and that of their loved ones. People troubled about how to cope with their finances, having lost jobs, closed their family-business, or having had to forego part of their normal wage. Not to mention people who have been more directly hit by this crisis through the sickness, or even death, of a loved one. Jesus’ “do not let your hearts be troubled” is not another way of expressing the probably-unrealistic and over-cited hope that “all will be OK”. The message of the resurrection is not a denial of the loss, of the reality of death and the pain that comes with it. What the resurrection of Jesus tells us is that there is more beyond all this - not merely a return to the previous life. But an entrance into a new kind of life. Not after death, but in the here and now.

“I am the way, the truth and the life,” Jesus tells Thomas in today’s gospel. If we want to experience something really good, we have to go through him, the way that leads us there. Being the truth, he knows what we are going through. He does not try to water it down, or pretend it is not happening. He knows our pain, our doubts, our many questions, our fears and anxieties. This is how he knows us, and this is how he loves us. And this is how he wants to help us live through this, take something out of this experience, and give us a fuller life.

​“Do not let your hearts be troubled”. In moments of fear or anxiety let us put ourselves in his loving arms, and trust that, as a good shepherd, he will lead us besides quiet waters, in green pastures, where our souls can be restored.

We are all very familiar with the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. One of the favorite images of many is, in fact, that of a sweet-faced Jesus carrying a lamb on his shoulders. An image which conveys a great sense of security and peace. Then there is the other image, always of the Good Shepherd, of the guy who goes out of his way to look for a lost sheep. Again, a great sense of security is felt here because, no matter how far you stray, deep down you know that your shepherd will always be there to secure your rescue.

While sticking to the same pastoral imagery of sheep and shepherds, today’s gospel gives us an image for Jesus which is quite different. I would say that the key theme in today’s gospel is the “enclosure”. It’s been translated in many different ways, such as sheepfold or sheep-pen. Jesus’ intention in John’s gospel is to convey the feeling of an enclosed space, where the sheep should not naturally be. They are there purely out of necessity, perhaps to be sheltered from the dangers outside. But surely the ideal and natural place for the sheep is to be in the outside, enjoying the freedom of roaming around in green pastures. Unfortunately sometimes bad people enter this enclosure to steal or kill the sheep. Jesus tells us that He is the only true shepherd - the one who enters into the enclosure to “lead them out”. He knows what’s good for them. This is very reminiscent of the famous psalm 23 which says, “The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul”.

Jesus says that there had been other people before him who came to where the sheep were, but they were only “thieves and bandits”. Unlike Jesus the Good Shepherd, they had no intention to lead the sheep into freedom and life. On the contrary, they came “to steal and kill and destroy”. He tells us that, if we really want true life, we have to go through him, by listening to his Voice and walking in his footsteps. “I came that they may have life,” he tells us, “and have it abundantly”. What a wonderful image during this Easter time, when we celebrate the passage from death to life, from slavery to freedom!

If we look at our lives we might find that we, too, are like those sheep who are enclosed in an enclosure, thinking that we are safe but in actual fact longing for some freedom and real food. It is, indeed, a false sense of security. This enclosure which enslaves us and robs us from our freedom could be, for example, our bad image of God. “Bad shepherds” might have instilled this in us, keeping us enslaved by the idea of an unjust, revengeful God. The Good Shepherd, on the other hand, came to show us a God who is love and rich in mercy. Other forms of enclosures which rob us from our freedom could be our bad habits or idols we create and to which we give too much importance such as money, success, and the idea other people might have of us. The Good Shepherd comes to free us from all of this. Then again, we could still be enslaved by anger or a sense of revenge (sometimes under the guise of justice) or our own past mistakes. By listening to the voice of the Good Shepherd we will realize that it is possible to be freed from all this and find the freedom to love - both our neighbor and ourselves.

​As we continue our Easter journey this year, let us take the opportunity of having more time on our hands to create some space in our lives where we can listen to the voice of our Good Shepherd. Perhaps today we could ask ourselves, “what voice do I listen to, when I take certain decisions in my life?” Let us make him our one and only Shepherd, the only one who can lead us to where there is life.